


to the sound of the ocean

by KerriLovegood



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Force-Sensitive Finn, Jedi Finn, M/M, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 18:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13664853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KerriLovegood/pseuds/KerriLovegood
Summary: Finn and Poe have lived four lives, and their souls have fought inexplicably towards each other every time.





	to the sound of the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for a good old reincarnation story. Not quite soulmates in the traditional sense, but if any couple is going to rewrite their fate, it is them.

You do not remember every life you have lived, but the Force does. It cradled you as it cradled him, when you were less than blood yet more than life. Between each life, it held you again and let you mingle between the fingers of its nebulas.

 

It would be poetic to say that you and him were made of the same dying star, that every time you met it was an explosion again. But you were not. You were drawn from a different place, a void between you.

 

Your first life was full of longing.

 

Born before travel between worlds, you belonged to a people that clung to the calloused skin of a small world. The days threatened the night, hot and arid and hard to breathe. The countless moons were misshapen and directionless, as if they had dropped and suddenly shattered across the atmosphere. Their light glowed warmly against your dark skin.

 

You would lay in the sand on calm nights and turn your gaze upwards, as if you were looking for something specific. It became tradition. You aged with your eyes scanning the depths you could not comprehend. And it felt like a fist somewhere deep in your gut, and a hook that dragged you forth.

 

A natural leader, even with the blushing newness of your soul, you followed the stars as if they were a map unfolding. And you reached the edge of the land, where an enormous tree plunged its roots over an eroding cliff edge and into the surf that leapt and snapped below. Foaming white at its edges, the body of water below was such a deep green-blue you could not even hazard a guess how far down or out it ended. Someone behind you voiced a thought -- that this is where existence ends.

 

      The spray that gently hit your face tasted like salt, like no other water you had ever had before. You said, it can't end here. Here is a place of beginnings.

 

      At night, the many moons reflected in the water, the light undulating and expanding on the swelling surface. You learned about tides.

 

      On the other side of the galaxy, there was a man whose heart beat in the spaces between the drumming of your own. He did not know of you, and you would never hear of him. Across that expanse, on an lush island of a planet alone in its system, this man wiped his glistening brow and wondered, for the first time in a long while, of something other than the stars. Warming himself on the sand, the high tide came in, pushing further towards the tan skin of his outstretched legs, and he thought of the ocean. And in that moment, he inexplicably tried to imagine what it was like to see it for the first time.

 

      Centuries after you rejoined the Force for the first time (where it embraced you with something close to greed), your descendents developed their first interplanetary ships and looked down upon the cracked and brown singular continent of your planet. Trade routes were established in local systems and interchange of life and culture happened with both handshakes and the fire of rudimentary blasters.

* * *

  


      In your second life, the other man was born on the planet adjacent to your original homeworld. He stopped looking at the stars and went there instead. He stared at that great, singular ocean, moving like something breathing, not knowing or caring that centuries before, you had stood there. But the ocean, the discovery -- that felt oddly familiar.

 

A pilot for an exploratory vessel, he discovered ornate, twisting structures on the surface of a world in the system next to them, the world you now called home. The crew of his vessel gasped, yelling at him to land. They did, and it felt as if space stretched on and on before they landed. From the surface, you watched the strange angles of this unfamiliar ship - a silhouette foreign to the make of your planet, set against a sky that was just beginning to dawn.

 

This lifetime, you had already seen the sky, flown through hyperspace from your world’s developing technology. You had stood against the yawning windows of your people’s cruisers, hand splayed out against the glass, and watched the cosmos weave between your fingers. This time, you were royalty.

 

Before a messenger even had a chance to reach you, you were outside, curious eyes searching the crowds for your most trusted friends. It was not the first time your people had made contact with others, but it was the first time you had been there.

 

Their ship landed on one of your landing pads, as though they were expected, and the crew fell out of their strange transport without order. They were a mismatched crew, not all of the same species -- you were not their first contact, either. Some of them were armed, but all of them look overwhelmed, faces unable to disguise their disbelief at the spiraling structures of your world that blended easily into the otherwise harsh peaks of the mountains around you. The early morning back lit the towers, both natural and artificial ,in hesitant pinks and washed-out oranges.

 

One of your men raised their weapon and barked an order. The newcomers did not understand, and they grew agitated. A few of them twitched towards their waist, and objects you could only assume were weapons of their own. A level of absurdity strikes you as you wonder what they could hope to do. The paranoia of the different seemed to carry across space. And it would not be indulged here.

 

Suddenly, one of their men nearly threw himself forward to stand in front of your men. He had crossed some sort of invisible line, and you all knew it. He held himself with an air of confidence yet casualty. It confused and intrigued you, the strange mix of pride yet humility that was already making itself known. Your own people parted almost instinctively, and you stepped forward. You were eye-to-eye, him and you, and as your gazes met, you became uneasily aware of your heartbeat picking up speed. Before you could pin down the thought and interrogate it, it manifested: _he can hear it, too._

 

Unexpectedly, this calmed you.  


He said something in a language that scratched at your ears, protesting its own strangeness. Narrowing your eyes, he repeated it, slower. You copied him, tongue clumsy with the unfamiliar sounds. Then, he smiled. And you understood.

 

“Hello,” you said, in your own language. Then, it was his turn to stumble over the sound. And your turn to smile. Both sides released a breath as the fear dispelled, and you welcomed them inside.

 

They stayed for under a week on your world, long enough to establish a connection before reaching out again for other stars. Over this time, a rudimentary understanding of each other’s language was established. A woman from that ship is invited to stay behind, to forge a strong linguistic connection for all future relations. But the fearless man from the first day could not stay. You have learned that he is their pilot -- their only pilot. You did not learn if it was custom, but rather suspected that he was so extraordinary another one would only ever feel insulting or superfluous.

 

Their last night there, you offered to let him try flying one of your ships. The conversation was composed of gesturing and spliced together words (grammar and all of its nuanced conventions being the hardest part to learn), but once comprehension struck -- his eyes lit up.

 

It was just the two of you in a ship composed of less angles than the one the man had arrived in. A console was the only thing that was separating your reclining bodies. After a few botched explanations of controls, the man was flying the craft as if it was the only thing he had ever known. You tried to speak to him, but words failed you, so he talked to you through the weaving of the ship between rocky peaks. And you pointed him on and on and on, because there was something that he had to see.

 

He was gaining speed, and part of you knew that there should have been an overtaking fear to it, as the man was unfamiliar with the geography of your world. But you shook it off as if the ship were open to the winds and you could watch the thought of terror toss fruitlessly behind you. Gaining speed, there was only the low throbbing of the engines and that returned, urgent pounding of your heart. Everything blended into blurs of sound and color, this time the stronger colors of sunset rather than the unsure hues of sunrise.

 

And then, without any sort of warning, you burst through a stark environmental barrier, and suddenly there were not the greyish crags of mountains anymore. In fact, there was no skyline at all. The other man exclaimed something that you did not yet understand, the mountains shrinking further and further behind you. Beneath you, stretching in every other direction was the great ocean, a deep blue that glowed golden in the fading light.

 

He tore his eyes away from the windows to look at you, similarly crested with the honey hues of light. There was something unreadable there. And in that moment, even if you knew all of his words and your own, there would not have been a single one to express what you felt.

 

After that day, you never saw the man again. But you never saw the ocean the same way, either.

* * *

  


Your third life was in a galaxy connected through governance and trade, strung together with a Basic tongue, but there were just as many strangers as before. The Force held onto you tighter before this one, kissed you just moments after your birth.

 

Your third life, you did not remember much before Coruscant, and grew gently into adulthood within the shadow of the Jedi Order. It was never a choice that you remembered, whether or not your life would be dedicated to them. Beneath the security of Order and Peace, there was a hollow you tried not to acknowledge. When everything was quiet enough, you felt the Force ebb and flow inside of you like a tide, beating in time with your heart. And with that, how could you be lonely?

 

The lightsaber you crafted yourself was green, the crystal calling to you from a memory you did not have yet.

 

One of your first solo assignments, you were paired with a pilot for the Republic -- and there he was. He dipped expertly between the glimmering buildings of the capital cityscape, and you could not fight off the feeling that something about it was achingly familiar.

 

It was a slow courtship, years in the making, neither of you willing to leap headfirst into a deal against the Jedi Code. He seemed to create business for himself in the Jedi Temple, even if for a glimpse of you. You would request him as your pilot for all off-world assignments. You slid into a warm ease with each other, something bubbling with loose laughter. He was perhaps too trusting -- maybe both of you were, in different ways, and it got you into various amounts of trouble as the years fell into each other.

 

No attachments, they said, but his stern brow and vindictive voice when stirred seemed like a greater truth to follow. He admitted once, with a bite of his lip and a glance cast downward, that he had doubts in the Republic, but he believed in you.

 

Once, months later, he walked in on you unannounced during long hours of training. Your own apprentice had left as fatigue had grown in her eyes until she struggled to keep them open. And then it was nighttime, a thousand stars of city lights dotting the expanse beyond the broad windows of the Jedi Temple. The room echoed with your own footsteps, your shining blade one of the only sources of light in the room.

 

And then, sensing his presence before hearing his footsteps, you turned around suddenly. He jumped slightly before both of you relaxed. The man did not even have an excuse to justify his appearance this time. But you did not ask for it, breathing deeply through the realization of the moment that toppled into numerous other realizations. The bright green of your saber shined on both of your faces, just a couple feet between you.

 

A beat, space enough for both of your hearts to pound. And then the light was gone, flicked off and then away from you, almost carelessly. Neither of you knew which one reached for the other first, but then you both swayed slightly, held tight in a long-desired embrace.

 

This continued for a few years, where a fear started to permeate your loyalty. Yet nothing could have felt less wrong. He told you stories of the oceans on Naboo, saying he would show you one day. One night, in a whisper, you said that you would leave the Order for him, that they did not control the Force, and they did not control you.

 

The next day, however, another Jedi, whose affections were torn and twisted out of shape, laid siege to the Temple. There was hardly a chance for any of you. You were caught unarmed, but still did everything you could to try to save the younglings. Finally, you succumbed to the burning blaster shots that tore open your chest.

 

What you did not know was that the man you loved saw the burning wreckage and ran towards it. You did not know he burst through the window where you had shared your first kiss in a shower of glass. You did not know that he died trying to find you.

* * *

  


This is your fourth life, but it is like a first.

 

The same evil that struck you down last time has tried to steal your soul. And once you knew it, you were gone, though never truly theirs. The Force has awoken in you, but you do not have the words for it. You have very few words, as that Evil tried to take all the ones from you with which you could define yourself.

 

He is there, though. Just after this awakening. He tells you that he can fly anything, and suddenly you are laughing together again, so unreservedly that for a moment you scratch at the familiarity of the moment. But it passes quickly, dismissed as part of the adrenaline of the moment.

 

He helps you find a name, and immediately you know it is right.

 

There is a time where you both believe each other dead. But neither of you are. Neither of you will be for a very long time. There are multiple more brushes with death before you are side by side again.

 

Months pass. The General tells you to go with your new friend, the woman with dreams larger than her fears, the girl who has mastered waiting as a discipline, just as she unknowingly waited until this lifetime to meet you. With her, you will go to a planet with both the Jedi and the ocean, and you will find that steeled General's brother who has training for you, too. You know that she is right, but…

 

Somehow you end up with him, in a training room on D’Qar, more worn down and claustrophobic than those of the Temple you sometimes remember in dreams. The two of you fight almost in sync now, the brutal precision of that evil force already having left your fighting style. For a long time, you punch identical bags in silence, sweating in dirty, grease-stained tank tops and sweats.

 

And then, the fight is drained from you both, and the room feels smaller still. He looks at you, and he says your name, and you look over. Neither of you want to acknowledge the days or weeks or months of uncertainty that lie ahead. So, he asks you if you would like to go to his favorite spot on the planet.

 

And then he guides you down a steep bank that flattens out into a grassy limb that reaches out into the shallow water of a pond. The sky is not cracked open by sharp peaks here; everything is sculpted from the tired hands of someone who just wanted soft curves and gentle endings. He puts his hand on your shoulder as you take in the opposite shore that marks this place different than the ocean and its illusion of limitlessness. Still, the green-blue waters stretch out, lapping upwards from some unseen force.

 

You talk about big and little things, laying down on the damp bank.

 

He flashes you a smile, all sprawled out on the sand, and for a moment you feel as though you've seen it before, a hundred times, as though you remember everything.

 

     You wonder if you will ever be given a life that is quiet, where even the stars soften their explosions to hear you breathe. The smile is still hanging on his features loosely, and as you speak, his eyes do not leave your mouth. Maybe, you do not want quiet. 

 

   So you wonder if, instead of silence, you will ever have a life where you are in love to the sound of the ocean. Beside you, the life in the pond bobs along to its own tune, if you know how to listen. You could fight for that life, you think, as you place your hand on his forearm. And then, all of that longing you have carried through the exhales between lifetimes breaches the surface. It glows. He sees the _yes_ in your eyes and leans forward.

 

    You find him halfway in a meeting of lips.

 

     Your name is Finn, and his name is Poe, and even if you could remember the other names your souls have held, these are the only ones that would feel right. You are still learning to make it feel right, to reclaim the body that houses your soul.

 

    His hands cup your face as you smile against his mouth. This could be a lifetime.

 

The First Order, they wanted you to forget, to be metal they could forge into weapons. Metal does not complain about the lives it takes, but you turned around in their hands and would not be used by them. They could not take your soul, and now you are trying to know it again, to let it shape you beyond this man in the shape of a sword.

 

A soft sound comes from his throat as he shifts closer to you. That strikes a chord; it resonates inside of you like a hymn. You are struck almost zealously with the knowledge that this is not the first time you have been here, pressed against him like you have never known war. Pulling away for just a moment, his kind brown eyes snap open, lips still parted, and his breath is hot on your face.  
  
You brush a loose curl from his forehead, and study his face, now held between your palms. It is different this time, you think, the sun kissing both of you lazily. There are no secrets; this life is not for the shadows and the treachery of hidden hearts.

 

Suddenly, he stands, pulling you up with him, and he walks backwards into the water, a grin on his face. There are quiet claps as your feet touch the water, and it is cooler than you imagined. The sand between your toes is nothing short of thrilling, and they could have been smoothed over millenia just for this moment -- if you are feeling self-concerned enough.

 

And you are. And you deserve to be. Maybe you were not born from the same star, the dust that blew like sand on a cosmic wind into planets and starships and people, but you chose to be, on some level, the same stuff as him, and you proved the Force wrong.

 

Both of you are still fully clothed, the ankle of your pants already sagging with the water. He is looking at you, waiting to see what you will do, but you hardly notice as you are gaping at the stunning, overwhelming _green_ of it all before returning to the brown of his eyes, and the lines in his face that smile.  
  
Then, you pull him out into the deep, your laughter mingling with his in the openness of these gently sloping hills. Ships land and take off in the distance, to discover and to protect. Your heart beats loudly in your ears. The cold shocks your system as the earthy water grows louder around you.

  
And you fall in love to the sound of it. _Again and again and again and again._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
